Every Four Years

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George Washington's contemporaries
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i^s^ ^His Mightiness,'^ut
^^fiiillilH^^^ settled for the ^iiflpi^l^ foFl^ of address:
Yet many othe^^festions about the oflRce have remained open. How assertive should the President be with regard to the other branches of the federal government? Is the uneven performance of the Presidents the result of flaws in the system or of the changmg American character?
Even the Pre^ij^^^ themsefee^
Government myself," William Howard Taft admitted, "I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the work of a President is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and bring tourists into the town."
Recognizing that scholarly attention to this central question of the role of the Chief Executive would be particularly desirable during a Presidential election year, the Smithsonian Institution—keeper of myriad documents, portraits, and personal belongings of the Presidents... Tovább

Fülszöveg

i ,' I

¦ I
¦ 1 I I , ¦ : . : r ¦ I
George Washington's contemporaries
dey|||||||J9 Elective
i^s^ ^His Mightiness,'^ut
^^fiiillilH^^^ settled for the ^iiflpi^l^ foFl^ of address:
Yet many othe^^festions about the oflRce have remained open. How assertive should the President be with regard to the other branches of the federal government? Is the uneven performance of the Presidents the result of flaws in the system or of the changmg American character?
Even the Pre^ij^^^ themsefee^
Government myself," William Howard Taft admitted, "I have come to the conclusion that the major part of the work of a President is to increase the gate receipts of expositions and fairs and bring tourists into the town."
Recognizing that scholarly attention to this central question of the role of the Chief Executive would be particularly desirable during a Presidential election year, the Smithsonian Institution—keeper of myriad documents, portraits, and personal belongings of the Presidents and their families—commissioned the editors of Smithsonian Books to convoke a kind of literary symposium on the Presidency.
This book, entifled Every Four Years in observance of the constitutional obligation to elect a President on a quaijUgiipial basis, traqes the j evolution oftro democratic spirit ipsS
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successive eras. After George Washington came the patrician Presidents, followed by several generals regarded as popular heroes. Then there was the supreme leader of an embattled nation, Abraham Lincoln, who stands forth as the apotheosis of the Presidency. Next there were the politicos of the Gilded Age, against whom the progressive leaders of the early 20th centuiy stand forth in dramatic contrast. Finally, in recent times, there have been Presidents in the glare of the media, whose relationship with the electorate has perforce been quite different than that of those before.
Each section of the book, organized according to these changing eras, commences with a major essay by a distinguished historian or journalist. Richard B. Morris, Arthur S. Link, and Hugh Sidey are among the contributors. Each section also has a set of handsomely illustrated features which showcase the Smithsonian's diverse collections.
The graphic climax of the book is a special, 16-page fold-out, a panorama of the campaign memorabilia collected for a central display in the National Museum of American History's "We the People" exhibit. But the culminating section of the book's narrative is an extraordinary essay on the Presidency by Stephen Hess of the Brookings Institution that embraces the views of Henry Steele Commager and other commentators on the nature of the ofiice, past, present, and future. Vissza